1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a human monitoring apparatus for detecting the presence of a human body and for detecting sleep of the body on a bed or a seat.
Conventionally, this type of human monitoring apparatus is what detects, for example, a brain wave and movement of eyeballs of the body and processes the signal waveform detected to judge falling asleep (Japanese unexamined published Patent Application No. 62-253034 (1987), or detects a pulse wave of the body and processes the signal waveform to judge falling asleep (Japanese unexamined published Patent Application No. Sho 63-150047 (1988)), which are both constituted of, as shown in FIG. 1, detecting means 1 for detecting physical signals such as the brain wave, movement of the eyeballs and pulse wave, signal processing means 2 for processing the signal from the detecting means 1 and judging means 3 for judging the falling asleep by outputs from signal processing means 2.
In the conventional configurations, however, since they are constructed such that the detecting means 1 for detecting the brain wave, movement of eyeballs and pulse wave is installed directly on the scalp or skin of the body, such a problem was encountered that an inharmonious feeling due to the installation may disturb the sleeping.
2. Disclosure of the Invention
The present invention is designed to solve the above-mentioned problems, and therefore, it is an object thereof to provide a human monitoring apparatus which judges, first, whether there is the body on a bed or a seat so as not to make an erroneous detection as the body movement when things are placed on the bed or the sear, and detects sleep easily without installing and contacting the detecting means to the human body. By viewing the fact that movement of the body (hereinafter referred to as body movement) comes to a standstill on sleep, the human monitoring apparatus detects the body movement without contacting the body and detects the sleep in response to the quiescent time of the body movement.
In order to achieve the above-mentioned object, the present invention includes body movement detecting means which in turn includes at least one piezo-electric element disposed on a bed or a seat and detects movement of a human body on the bed or the seat. The body movement detecting means producing a signal. Also includes are absence judging means for judging the presence of a body on the bed or seat when the signal level is above the first set value and below a second predetermined set value, and body movement judging means for judging that the body has produced a rough body movement such as turning over on the bed or the seat when the signal level is above the second set value.
The present invention further includes a timer for resetting a time measurement whenever the absence or rough body movement is judged and starting the time measurement when the presence is judged, and sleep judging means for judging that the body has fallen asleep when a measured time of the timer exceeds a predetermined set time.
In the present invention, the body movement detecting means is constituted by, at least one piezo-electric element disposed on bedding or a seat, a filter which filters a certain specific frequency component with respect to respective signals of the piezo-electric element, an amplifier which amplifies the filter signal, a rectifier which rectifies the amplifier signal and a smoothing device which smoothes the rectifier signal.
The present invention is constituted by a piezo-electric element including of a high-molecular piezo-electric material such as polyvinylidene fluoride, which is processed into a thin film and bonded with a flexible electrode film on both surfaces thereof to form a tape.
In the present invention, the piezo-electric element is contained in a sheet shaped bag, and a stretchingly-and-shrinkingly movable stretch-shrink parts are provided on the end parts of the bag, and in addition, engaging and disengaging parts, which enable engaging and disengaging of end tip parts of the stretch-shrink parts from each other, are provided on respective ones of the end parts.
The present invention provides display means for displaying the signal level of the body movement detecting means, and first setting means capable of manually changing over between the first set value and the second set value, based on the signal level displayed by the display means.
The present invention comprises first memory means which samples and stores the signal level of the body movement detecting means at a predetermined period when the presence in,the bed or the seat is judged by the presence judging means, first operating means which operates a minimum value and a maximum value of the content stored in the first memory means, and second setting means which refreshes the minimum value as the first set value and the maximum value as the second set value.
The present invention comprises third setting means capable of setting the set time manually.
The present invention comprises second memory means for storing the measurement time of the timer whenever the time measurement of the timer is reset, second operation mans for operating a frequency distribution of the measurement time stored in the second memory means, third operating means which operates to obtain a time T in a manner that the ratio of the cumulative frequency until the time T is the frequency distribution against the total cumulative frequency shows a certain predetermined value, and fourth setting means which executes the storing and operating operation at every fixed period thereby to refresh the setting with the time T as the set time.
In the present invention, the body movement detecting means comprises at least one piezo-electric element disposed on bedding or a seat, a filter which filters a certain specific frequency component for respective signals of the piezo-electric element, a first amplifier which amplifies the filter signal, a second amplifier having a smaller amplification than the first amplifier for amplifying the filter signal, a first rectifier which rectifies the first amplifier signal, a second rectifier which rectifies the second amplifier signal, a first smoothing device which smoothes the first rectifier signal, and a second smoothing device which smoothes the second rectifier signal, and further comprises absence judging means for judging absence of the body on the bedding when the signal level of the first smoothing device is below the first set value, presence judging means for judging presence of the body on the bed or the seat in a quiet state when the signal level of the first smoothing device is above the first set value, and the signal level of the second smoothing device is below the third set value predetermined, and body movement judging means for judging the rough body movement of the body of the bed or the seat when the signal level of the second smoothing device is above the third set value.
In the present invention, the piezo-electric element is disposed on a toilet seat or a bath tub.
Furthermore, the present invention comprises the body movement detecting means for detecting a fine movement propagated by the function of heart and breathing of a human body on a bed or a seat, said body movement detecting means producing a signal, presence judging means for judging whether or not the human body is present on the bed or the seat in accordance with the signal of the body movement detecting means.
The present invention outputs a voltage signal generated by piezo-electric effects, when at least a piezo-electric element disposed on a bed or a seat is deformed by the body movement, after filtering, amplifying, rectifying and smoothing it in the smoothing device. The present invention judges by the absence judging means that the body is absent on the bed or the seat when the signal level of the body movement detecting means is below a predetermined first set value, judges by the presence judging means, that the body is on the bed or the seat in a quiet state when the said signal level is above the first set value and below the predetermined second set value, and judges by the body movement judging means that the body has moved roughly on the bed or the seat such as turning over when the signal level is above the second set value, whereby the timer resets time measurement whenever the absence is judged or the rough body movement is judged and starts the measurement when the present in the bed or the seat is judged, and when the measurement time of the timer exceeds a predetermined set time, the sleep judging means judges that the body has fallen asleep.
In the present invention, the above-mentioned piezo-electric element is constituted by processing a high-molecular piezo-electric material such as polyvinylidene fluoride into a thin film and bonding flexible electrode films on both faces thereof to form a tape.
Also, in the present invention, the piezo-electric element is contained in a sheet shaped bag, on the portions of said sheet-shaped bag, and a stretchingly-and-shrinkingly movable stretch-shrink parts are provided on the end parts of the bag, and in addition, engaging and disengaging parts, which enable engaging and disengaging of end tip parts of said stretch-shrink parts from each other, are provided on respective ones of said end parts.
The present invention displays the signal level of the body movement detecting means by display means, and is able to change the first set value and the second set value manually in response to the signal level.
In the present invention, when the presence in bed is judged by the presence judging means, the signal level of the body movement detecting means is sampled and stored at a period predetermined; and further a minimum value and a maximum value of the memory content are operated hence to refresh the minimum value as the first set value and the maximum value as the second set value by the second setting means.
The present invention is capable of setting the set time manually by the third setting means.
The present invention stores the measurement time of the timer and operates the frequency distribution of the measurement time, every time the time measurement of the timer is reset, operates the time T in a manner that the ratio of cumulative frequency until the time T in the frequency distribution to the total cumulative frequency show a predetermined certain value, and refresh the setting taking the time T as the set time.
The present invention filters a signal of, at least, one piezo-electric disposed on the bed or the seat, amplifies the filtered signal respectively by two amplifiers having different amplifications, and rectifies and smoothes them. Then, distinguishing vibration propagated to the piezo-electric element by movement of other in the vicinity of the bed or the seat, and vibration applied to the piezo-electric element by the body movement of a person in the bed or the seat, and judging the absence, presence and rough body movement.
The present invention judges whether or not the body is present on the toilet seat or a bath tub.
Furthermore, the present invention detects the presence of the body on the bed or the seat in accordance to the signal of the body movement detecting means which detects the fine movement propagated by the function of heart and breathing of the body.